2013 Texans mess doesn't compare to 1993 Oilers

Says Ernest Givins: âThe Oilers should have never left. If you had a nice parade for the Texans and a nice parade for the Oilers, see how many Oilers fans come out."

Says Ernest Givins: âThe Oilers should have never left. If you had a nice parade for the Texans and a nice parade for the Oilers, see how many Oilers fans come out."

Photo: Robert Seale, HP Staff

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The 1993 Oilers are surprised at how much the 2013 Texans, including Matt Schaub, failed to bounce back from early struggles.

The 1993 Oilers are surprised at how much the 2013 Texans, including Matt Schaub, failed to bounce back from early struggles.

Photo: Smiley N. Pool, Staff

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Matt Schaub

Matt Schaub

Photo: Karen Warren, Staff

2013 Texans mess doesn't compare to 1993 Oilers

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A team breaks when it fractures, right?

Enough pick-sixes, close defeats and critical injuries, and a collection of premier athletes - who began a much-hyped season as a Super Bowl contender - will become a failure by the time a lost season is over.

The most disappointing team in franchise history produced one of the worst years in the history of Houston pro sports. Coach Gary Kubiak lost his job, quarterback Matt Schaub became a shell of his 2012 Pro Bowl self and everyone from Arian Foster to J.J. Watt watched their legacies take a hit.

But the 1993 Oilers examine the wreckage of the 2013 Texans, shake their heads and laugh.

Want to see a real mess? Want to watch a team implode? That's the 1993 Oilers, who endured a season widely regarded as the craziest in NFL history and nearly overcame it.

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Where the 2013 Texans gave in to the lowest of expectations and succeeded only at letting themselves and their fans down, the 1993 Oilers persevered for a full season, turned a chaotic 1-4 start into a franchise-record 11 consecutive wins and nearly advanced to the AFC Championship Game.

The anti-Texans

Warren Moon, Mike Munchak, Ray Childress and Co. only became stronger as the fire intensified. Twenty years removed from a run that defines Oilers football in Houston, players look back in awe at everything they survived and accomplished in 1993.

A few are surprised the city's current NFL team didn't show more heart when its initial casualties began to pile up.

"Look what happened with the Houston Texans: (They) get run out of the gym," said Pro Bowl defensive end Sean Jones, who won a Super Bowl with the 1996 Green Bay Packers. "You lose three or four games in a row and you don't know how to hold it together."

Two weeks before the 2013 Texans ended their season, Pro Bowl left guard Wade Smith hinted at the weakness that underlined the year.

Inconsistency, an inability to finish off close games and mounting injuries hollowed out a team that began the year defined by depth and a determination to prove its late 2012 fall was an aberration. When the Texans finally finish 2013 on Sunday against the Tennessee Titans, the best team owner Bob McNair has possessed on paper will have been 4-17 since it peaked at 11-1 on Dec. 2, 2012, in Nashville, Tenn.

"You are what you put on the field and on film, and we are what we are," Smith said. "Right now, we're a bad team. We play bad ball."

The 1993 Oilers were mostly horrible through five games, leading to Moon's benching and the increasing sense that owner Bud Adams might jump-start his ruthless rebuilding and dismantle the team midseason.

But just when the Oilers appeared to reach a breaking point, they became the anti-Texans.

Where Schaub collapsed, Moon rose. Major mid- and late-season injuries were hurdles, not mountains. Not even Babygate, defensive tackle Jeff Alm's horrific suicide and Buddy Ryan's punch could derail the best overall team in Oilers history.

With the Texans bottoming out and nostalgia kicking in for the Oilers, two-time Pro Bowl wide receiver Ernest Givins said he was prouder than ever to be part of a 1993 team whose story defies reality.

"The Oilers should have never left," he said. "If you had a nice parade for the Texans and a nice parade for the Oilers, see how many Oilers fans come out."

Super dream lingers

Cornerback Cris Dishman acknowledged his former team could use some help from a franchise that's in its second stage but has only two wild-card victories to show for 12 seasons.

The Texans' 2013 campaign was supposed to be the year they cemented their status as one of the NFL's elites. Instead, all the Texans did was prove they couldn't handle a fraction of what the 1993 Oilers overcame.

"We still have a job unfinished," Dishman said. "And as a Houston Oiler, I still want the Texans to do well and I want them to win a Super Bowl, because I want to be able to bring a Super Bowl to the Houston fans."